I am looking to buy a horse that has potential in eventing (beginner novice), dressage, and western. I am limited with my price range and that the horse
Be started well. I have looked at a few horses but none have been what I want. I am going to look at this horse next week. Please give me some input on if this horse (by build) will be good at what I would like. Thanks!Untitled | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I am by no means an expert at confo. What I like in that horse, is the angle of the shoulder and the pasterns. Both would give a nice range of motion and an adjustable stride. What I don't like is his croup is higher than with withers and his neck ties in kind of low. The downhill build and low (and long) neck would make it very hard for him to work from behind for dressage. You'd spend all day trying to get him off the forehand. Hope that helps.

Don't know anything about Dressage, but as a western horse he looks good. I like his sloping shoulder, long forearms, short cannons, medium pasterns and a deep flank. He should have alot of stopping power. Take a look at his chest, you don't want it to be to wide, nor too narrow. Also watch his walk, if his back foot steps over the front track , then that would be a very good thing. Look to see that he is overall balanced and pleasing to look at. You will want a short back, and high withers. Im not a pro, its what I would look for.

Thanks! He is only 5 so I think he might still grow. He was supposed to be a reining horse but the owners have top top level money earners and know he wont win the big bucks so that's why he's for sale. Every horse I have looked at (pretty much every horse that is in my price range) is down hill and has way worse conformation then him. Thanks for the input and I would love to hear more opinions!!!

How tall is he? He looks to me like he is not a very big guy. He is decidedly down hill. His back is fairly long. He is a bit too straight in the hocks and his hip is shallow, this would make it harder for him to get over jumps and to collect for dressage.

There are many factors in chosing a horse for a particular discipline. Conformation is of course a huge factor. Without the correct conformation, a horse will likely not remain sound for long. This is especially true of demanding disciplines. The other thing is heart. Does the horse have the attitude of "I love to work" or is the horse simply not interested? One can train a lot of things into a horse but it not only isn't fun to try to force something on a horse that isn't interested, but you won't go far in the sport if the horse doesn't have the heart for it.

Agree that his conformation is not ideal for dressage and not really for jumping either. While he does seem to have a nice shoulder, he's definitely downhill and more straight through the hocks than I'd like to see.

For lower level eventing, he'd probably be fine. If he really has guts and loves his job, and you're willing to pay a little extra for upkeep (read; hock injections) he could probably compete through training level. Probably. You never really know until you try. He is young, but I doubt he'll do enough growing to even out his topline, and nothing at this point will do much for those straight hocks. Dressage is not going to come easy for him, but if you're willing to work with him on being consistent, accurate, and relaxed, then he should be competitive at the lower levels.

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